Effectively responding to a nuclear crisis such as the catastrophe at Japan's Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant, or a nuclear terrorist act requires the daunting, if not impossible task of monitoring, sorting, and clearing tens to hundreds of thousands of individuals evacuated from the epicenter of the event. As will be readily appreciated, the term “monitoring” means checking a target surface for the presence of radioactive material contamination.
Radiological emergency responders would want any such evacuation to be controlled and performed in such a manner to identify any radioactive contamination and to minimize the spread of contamination. A quarantined perimeter would need to be formed to achieve this goal. The population would need to be individually monitored for radiological contamination at the perimeter and then channeled for appropriate action depending upon the result of monitoring. Long delays in this process would increase the amount of time radioactive material remains on contaminated individuals thus increasing the dose to these individuals and as time passes in any such emergency there is a danger of public hysteria and panic.
Current technology used by radiological emergency responders involves the use of portable battery-operated hand-held instrumentation which necessitates monitoring of a person's entire body with a small probe. Typical probe areas are 12 to 100 square centimeters (i.e., 2 to 16 square inches). An appropriate and complete whole body survey utilizing such instrumentation would require 3 to 5 minutes per person and would also require dedicated professionals skilled in the use of the instrumentation. Accordingly, 12 to 20 individuals could be surveyed per hour per instrument. Hand-held instruments would be used because faster whole body scanning instruments are ordinarily not sufficiently mobile to be moved quickly into position for use in responding to emergencies. Furthermore, they are not readily available and procurement involves long lead times.
There is a need to greatly improve the efficiency and speed of radiological triage in these radiological emergency situations.
The present invention fulfills this need by providing a method of using automatic whole body personnel contamination monitors and/or means for decontaminating individuals exposed to radioactive material contamination, the method comprising using the monitors and/or decontamination means in mobile-unit structures dedicated to responding to radiological emergency situations.
The present invention further fulfills this need by providing a mobile-unit structure for responding to radiological emergency situations that comprises an intermodal container, and contained therein at least one of:                (a) one or more automatic whole body personnel contamination monitors for alpha and/or beta emitting radioactive material contaminants; and        (b) means for decontaminating individuals exposed to radioactive material contamination.        
The present invention also provides a system for responding to radiological emergency situations that comprises a plurality of the mobile-unit structures described above.
Other features and advantages of the invention will be apparent to one of ordinary skill from the following detailed description and accompanying drawings. Unless otherwise defined, all technical and scientific terms used herein have the same meaning as commonly understood by one of ordinary skill in the art to which this invention belongs. All publications, patent applications, patents and other references mentioned herein are incorporated by reference in their entirety. In case of conflict, the present specification, including definitions, will control. In addition, the materials, methods, and examples are illustrative only and not intended to be limiting.